ALL ABOUT THE BENJAMINS

Cash flow is king. (Don't tell Henry VIII if you wanna keep your head.) And that's why apartments are a hot investment commodity at the moment.

That was the message from AMLI's founder and CEO Gregory Mutzat our Atlanta Multifamily Summit last week. Gregory called multifamily investments ?almost a put on the American economy.? When the economy sours, apartments become more desirable for investors. ?What's driving it now is cash flow.? And by cash flow, he means rents. Even with anemic cap rates, cash flow is returning 4.5% to 6% to investors, he says. But Gregory offered a dire warning to investors who are buying apartments at such aggressively low cap rates: When interest rates go up finally, ?it's going to be an interesting period of time where you better have a burn suit and crash helmet.?

Gregory was one of our panelists for the apartment ownerssegment, which included Gables Residential's Joe Wilber, Greystar'sBill Maddux, and Reznick Group's Josh Northcutt (who was our moderator). Joe says renters will still be abundant, given the expectation that home ownership will continue to drop, he believes, to as low as 60% (it tracked at 66% earlier this year, down from nearly 70% at the peak). ?Not only the echo boom but everybody came to the conclusion that renting is not such a bad thing,? he says. Gregory agreed with that assessment, adding that every 1% drop equated to more than one million new renters. But he cautioned that the trend away from home ownership will reverse. ?In my view, it's going to overcorrect like all things.?

Bill's company has a different approach to solving America'shealthcare crisis: Get his employees in shape. Bill told our audience of more than 350 that ?we don't think healthcare in America is Barack Obama's fault.? Instead, people are responsible for their own health. And as such, Greystar instituted a health improvement programthat's bringing in dieticians to offer healthy eating tips, giving employees odometers to track their physical mileage, and offeringincentives to get healthier. ?We got ourselves into this. Greystar is going to do everything we can to help our employees get out of it.?

We caught Transwestern's mulitfamily dynamic duo Mike McGaughyand Jon Kleinberg contemplating our panelists at the summit last week. Jon tells us that Roswell Creek, a nearly 500-unit complex on Holcomb Bridge that they were marketing for sale (which we reportedhere), is now under contract and will close by end of the year. The two also are gathering final offers on two other multifamily projects: the Hamptons at Lenox and Waterford Creek, a Henry County Class-A project with 260 units. We'll keep you posted.